Tag Archives: John Piper

Esther as “Bachelor” contestant who was “In it to win it”

Posted on March 6, 2018 by | 1 comment

This past Sunday, I visited a Converge church, a denomination formerly known as the Baptist General Conference.  This denomination hosts a rather diverse group of pastors, from fundamentalist, complementarian John Piper to “heretic” Greg Boyd from Woodland Hills Church, of which I am a faithful “podrishoner.”  In addition, our beloved former church in Maine is a part of Converge.

The pastor at this church I visited is a Dallas Theological Seminary graduate and an obvious complementarian, whose demeanor and style struck me right off as being NeoCalvinist and of the Piper-persuasion.  He was opening a series on Esther and I was blown away with his take.  I don’t think it is over-stating to say that I was appalled.

He began with a description of the wicked king, whose wife Vashti did a good thing refusing to strip tease for a room of drunks, but this made the king look bad for not having control of his household, which he oddly publicized all over the kingdom when he threw his “Miss Persia” contest.  We’ve all seen “The Bachelor” and may credit Hollywood with this brilliant idea, but Ancient Persia was ahead of their time!  He described Esther’s year of beauty treatments under the care of eunuchs – “We all know what a eunuch is, right?  Good, I don’t have to explain it.”  Then this young pastor went on to say it is difficult to say who the heroes of this story really are, as Mordecai and Esther stayed in Persia rather than return to their own land with Nehemiah to rebuild, and they hid their Jewish identity, so they weren’t living according to covenant laws.  And Esther was “in it to win it” in a contest with a “sexual component.”  So her character is questionable but God was able to work all things for good in this story (Romans 8:28).

Viewing the context of Esther like this is very similar to Mark Driscoll’s perspective.  He wrote about Esther,

She grows up in a very lukewarm religious home as an orphan raised by her cousin. Beautiful, she allows men to tend to her needs and make her decisions. Her behavior is sinful and she spends around a year in the spa getting dolled up to lose her virginity with the pagan king like hundreds of other women. She performs so well that he chooses her as his favorite. Today, her story would be, a beautiful young woman living in a major city allows men to cater to her needs, undergoes lots of beauty treatment to look her best, and lands a really rich guy whom she meets on The Bachelor and wows with an amazing night in bed. She’s simply a person without any character until her own neck is on the line, and then we see her rise up to save the life of her people when she is converted to a real faith in God.

This is a really detestable way to paint the life of a teenage girl who was probably around 12-14 years old and was “sought,” “gathered” and “taken” by the king’s soldiers and placed in custody of Hegai, the eunuch (castrated man) in charge of the harem.  Saying that Esther was competing in a “Miss Persia Pageant” is like saying blacks “immigrated”
to Southern cotton farms.  This was sex slavery.  Esther could not refuse the king without risk of execution.  And after her one night with the king, had she not been crowned queen, she would have been discarded/imprisoned in a harem for the remainder of her life.  Calling Esther’s character into question is preposterous.  Would we question the character of Jews in Nazi Germany for hiding their ethnicity?  Would we question a child who was raped at knife-point?

Esther had NO CONTROL over her imprisonment and rape.  She was a child.  She was a victim.  She was a minority.  She was a young girl in a patriarchal world that only valued women as property.  She had no power or agency in the context of this story.

And she is the HERO!!  Do not minimize Esther because she is a female heroine in the Bible!  Stop minimizing the amazing women of the Bible that God used to do amazing things for His Kingdom!  Jews celebrating Purim know exactly who the hero is – they cheer every time the reader says Esther’s name, and boo whenever Haman’s name is read.

It is not difficult at all for us to condemn Sharia law for child marriage.  But when it comes to Roy Moore and Kentucky’s ‘child bride’ bill, Evangelicals can be painfully hypocritical.  And with the on-going conversation about the hashtags #metoo, #churchtoo and #silenceisnotspiritual, the book of Esther is a beautifully relevant story to tell in addressing sex abuse and the church’s historic culpability in covering it up.  Sex abuse among Protestant denominations is a sadly prevalent reality.  The church I was visiting had around 600 people in attendance.  If the statistics bear out, there were probably around 100 people there who have been sexually abused or assaulted at some point in their lives.

The Whartburg Watch gave this analysis of Driscoll’s contemptible statement above:

1.”Beautiful, she allows men to tend to her needs and make her decisions.”
Driscoll shows an abysmal lack of understanding about the role of women in this culture. She did not “allow” men to make decisions for her; she was forced to do so.  She would be forced to do so if she was beautiful or ugly.

2. “She spends around a year in the spa getting dolled up to lose her virginity with the pagan king like hundreds of other women.”
Let’s get something straight.  Being taken to a harem by a bunch of the kings’ men is not a day at the spa. This was about one thing for everyone involved and that was making the king happy. If the king wasn’t happy, everyone involved would die.   She had ZERO right of refusal unless she wanted a straight ticket to eternity.

3.”She performs so well that he chooses her as his favorite.”
Once again, Driscoll demonstrates his unremitting fixation with sex. He assumes that she was some sort of sex machine that serviced the king in such a way that he made her his queen. How does he know that? Could Esther have been kind, thoughtful, smart, or humorous? I guess it doesn’t matter because, in Driscoll’s world, it all boils down to sex. So that was, is and ever more shall be, his final answer.

4. “Today, her story would be, a beautiful young woman living in a major city allows men to cater to her needs, undergoes lots of beauty treatment to look her best, and lands a really rich guy whom she meets on The Bachelor.”
Driscoll’s attempt to bring this into a modern context shows a bizarre reinterpretation of the historical nature of that culture. Did he ever take a history course?  If he did, I want the name of his professor. Today’s reality shows are based on freedom of choice. One does not have to be Kim Kardashian, although Deb comes pretty close. (Let’s see if she is reading this). But,  from what I have read about Driscoll’s needs, his wife better be on her “A” game or another book will be forthcoming, bless her heart.

5. “She’s simply a person without any character until her own neck is on the line, and then we see her rise up to save the life of her people when she is converted to a real faith in God.”
How does he know that she lacks character? Character is revealed, not when things are going well, but when things are going dreadfully wrong.  In fact, from my observations of Driscoll, he needs to spend some time in study and prayer on the issue of character. Mark Driscoll is certainly no Esther when it comes to this virtue.

Secondly, did anyone read any verses in Esther about her conversion? How does he know she didn’t have a real faith in God? When it came time to save her people, she requested that the Jews fast for three days. Fasting is one of those biblical things, last time I checked. So, did she just get lucky and guess that they should fast or was she just a quick study?

A Bit of Humor

One of the funnier comments I found on this sad example of Driscoll’s Biblical exposition is the following. The author at Kludt said that he had some points of agreement with Driscoll. Here is how he presented it.

[Esther] grows up in a very lukewarm religious home as an orphan raised by her uncle. Beautiful, she allows men to tend to her needs and make her decisions. Her behavior is sinful and she spends around a year in the spa getting dolled up to lose her virginity with the pagan king like hundreds of other women. She performs so well that he chooses her as his favorite. Today, her story would be, a beautiful young woman living in a major city allows men to cater to her needs, undergoes lots of beauty treatment to look her best, and lands a really rich guy whom she meets on The Bachelor and wows with an amazing night in bed. She’s simply a person without any character until her own neck is on the line, and then we see her rise up to save the life of her people when she is converted to a real faith in God.

In this article, Marg Mowzcko talks about Mark Driscoll’s preference for Karen Jobe’s commentary on Esther, and the interesting irony that complementarians will read women theologians but will not allow that same woman to publicly teach her wisdom and scholarship on that same topic.  

I just had to log in today for this special rant.  Even though I grew up complementarian, I have been attending egalitarian churches for nearly eight years now, so hearing complementarian exposition first-hand again was jarring.  I believe the patriarchy is the evil result of the Fallen relationship between men and women and is not at all God’s vision for humankind.  We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord.  For there is now no more male or female, Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, for we are all one in Christ (Galatians 8:28).

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It’s Okay to Walk Away

Posted on April 20, 2017 by | 8 comments
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I’m a nail biter and drink my coffee sans foam art, but otherwise this is totally me.

I made a rash decision yesterday to comment on a Desiring God post by John Piper about the decline of male headship theology.  He was saying that “Christlike headship will endure because it is true to God’s word,” and in explaining its decline, he said that those who are becoming egalitarians are being influenced by secularism or are bitter.

This was my comment:

I can tell you why I became an egalitarian, if you are really curious. I grew up Conservative Baptist, went to an Evangelical college, went to a reformed seminary, maintaining my complementarian worldview/interpretive lens. Along the way I met some egalitarians who deeply loved God, had beautiful marriages, and held to the Bible’s authority with a high view of Scripture. Not like I had been taught egalitarians were like. Then one day, as a stay-at-home homeschooling mom, I was sitting in a Bible study and heard God say loud and clear to me: “I want you to co-pastor with your husband.” I was not reading “liberal” theologians, I had little “secular” influence in my life, and I was not bitter about my role. I am naturally a submissive, quiet person. So I started studying the issue of women in ministry and was convinced by egalitarian interpretations. I think it is helpful to talk to actual egalitarians about why they believe what they believe rather than speculating and painting them as secular or bitter. The Bible tells us to consider others better than ourselves, so in the least, we can give others the benefit of the doubt rather than mischaracterizing their motivations. We are all brothers and sisters in Christ regardless of our complementarianism/egalitarianism, so let us love one another.

I regretted this comment pretty quickly, after receiving the first two comments:

Ken Edwards: Anytime someone says they’ve heard from the Lord I always hope they’ll compare what they’ve heard with scripture. If the two don’t line up one might be wise to question who was speaking.

Annie Carder: Your definition of “submissive” is off. There’s your problem.

I sat on these comments for an hour, telling myself, “You don’t have to reply.  You can walk away,” then I replied,

I realize I posted in complementarian territory, and we all don’t know each other from Adam. Just wanted to say that the overall premise of the argument that egalitarians are influenced by secularism or bitterness is 1) unloving, 2) counter to my experience knowing many egalitarians, 3) untrue of my own change to egalitarianism. Just wanted to make the suggestion that y’all talk to egalitarians as brothers and sisters in Christ rather than maligning them and never engaging with their actual arguments.

At what point do you walk away?  I should have trusted my instinct.  I was in an unsafe place.  When complementarians comment on posts on The Beautiful Kingdom Warriors FB page, I always treat them with respect, kindness, and hospitality.  It is rare that I am treated well on complementarian playgrounds.  They assume that I am worldly and bitter, so they gift me with “tough love.”  Like this man who emerged next…

Steve Hulbert: But then you’re not engaging with what’s being said to you…

I took the bait.

To Ken Edwards: I definitely did. Had to read egalitarian theologians and pastors to understand their interpretation of headship, creation order, women in ministry, etc. Have been taught the complementarian perspective all my life and it always seemed clear and right to me, so I was shocked by the idea of co-pastoring. Also have never experienced anything like that before or since. The next day, someone recommended the book “How I Changed My Mind About Women in Leadership” and this article by Dr. Walt Kaiser, and I haven’t really stopped reading since then (five or six years). http://www.walterckaiserjr.com/women.html

To Annie Carder: Didn’t realize I had defined submission in my original post. Was just trying to say that submitting to my husband as the head of the family was not hard nor was it making me bitter or power hungry. I find that egalitarians take submission further, with mutual submission.

To Steve Hulbert: I was regretting my post, feeling gun-shy about being the odd one out in this comment thread.  I appreciate everyone’s kindness.

Then Steve started in.  He stuck around until he told me to get lost, pretty much.  But here’s how he began:

Steve Hulbert: I’m reading that link and it’s pretty much what I would have expected: poring over many small details and blaming mistranslation for what the text appears to say. It doesn’t make any sense in the context of Corinthians 11 to say that the sign of authority is a sign of the woman’s power when the preceding verse has said that woman was created for man and not vice versa, and earlier that the man is the head of woman. I’m no expert to interpret that passage but I notice he’s only referred to one verse and nothing about the rest of the context.

To which I replied,

Thanks for reading the article! I hate debating but can send links at light speed if anyone ever wants more info. Another egalitarian resource is newlife.id.au. Here’s her post on 1 Corinthians 11: http://newlife.id.au/…/the-chiasm-in-1-corinthians-11…/

Then got this gem, which I ignored:

Enoque Júnio Calado: So did Mohamed, so did John Smith. All have claimed they heard the voice of God and created false religions. No further revelation apart from the bible should be made into doctrine, and those who plainly deny the scriptures should be anathema.

Sola Scriptura

And this,

Jason Warner: Such a facinating discussion. As I see it…evangelical comps and evangelical egalitarians essentially function in the same way. Russel Moore has commented on this as well – regarding the inconsistency of comps on paper and in function – that comps want to check the comp box. Piper and Grudem created the comp concept, as we know it now, within the last 30 years. But even those within the Reformed camp do not agree on what it actually means or how far to take the concept (home, church, work, Trinity, etc.). Last year’s ESS uproar is an example of the “infighting.”

I liked that one.  Then got this,

Joye Stewart: Found this on the internet..

The place to begin in this, as in other biblical questions, is to ask, “What does the Bible say?” Even a cursory reading of the pertinent texts reveals three important observations: 1) there were no known women pastors in New Testament times; 2) none of the instructions regarding church order include instructions for women pastors; and 3) some texts on church order explicitly forbid women to occupy that role. Paul, in 1 Tim. 2:12, states, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man” (NIV) . This verse is introduced by a statement that women should learn “in silence,” and it is followed by the statement that “she must be silent.” The word silence means being possessed by a calmness of spirit and peaceful disposition. It is set as the opposite to “teaching” and “having authority over a man.” Paul does not expect that women will not or can not learn or teach (compare with Titus 2:3-5 and 2 Tim. 1:5; 3:14,15). He states that they cannot teach or have authority over men. Thus, they cannot have a pastoral position, or perform the pastoral function, for that puts them in authority over men.

If the scripture says women are not to teach or have authority over men, then I would follow the scripture over the voices in my head.

I didn’t have to sit around deciding whether or not to reply to this comment.  Outright misinformation needs correction, for the sake of silent observers.  I said,

In reply to point 1, there are many known women in ministry in the New Testament, even in relation to men. Junia, Lydia, Peter’s daughters, Phoebe, etc. https://godswordtowomen.org/pastors.htm

Per point 2, many instructions have been interpreted with male pronouns where the original text was inclusive. The Holy Spirit descended on men and women at Pentecost, the gifts of the Spirit are never gender specific. It was prophesied that “your sons and daughters will prophecy” and that has come to pass.

Per point 3, I believe the egalitarian interpretations of those passages are compelling and align more with the overall message of Scripture – men and women are both fully created in the image of God and were both given dominion and authority by God. Both men and women are told to submit to one another and to serve and make disciples. The first missionary was a woman (the Samaritan woman at the well evangelized her whole city), and the first person to preach the resurrected Christ was Mary.

Jason Warner commented again, and he seems to be a super nice complementarian. Very kind and gracious.

Jason Warner: Ruth – comps have strong biblical support as it relates to some specifics (elders, etc.) too. You bring up good points to consider though. The idea that women in the Bible didn’t always operate within the modern “comp” structure is an example of how difficult it is to pinpoint what comp actually looks like on any consistent level. Once one gets past elders and pastors (Catholics would then be comps too if that’s the measuring stick) it become merely, in my view, much about talk and labels. I’d like to see Piper and OT Deborah work this out together …now that would be interesting!

Me to Jason Warner: yes, I agree. Comp theology always made sense to me….until it didn’t anymore.

And then Steve got back to me.

Steve Hulbert: So you don’t have an answer to my point then.

Please don’t spam this page with questionable links.

Does Steve run the Desiring God page?  Did he even open the link?  Marg Mowzcko’s blog is a highly rated Bible scholarship website.

Got these lovely comments next:

Julie Castin Cordeiro: praise the Lord!!! I am getting a master in theology…my husband is a 3year convert. God has called me to ministry not him.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-17/neglected-history-of-women-in-early-church.html

Ruth dont waste your time…God has called you be happy and submit to His calling. If these who object you can prove your gifts are from the devil, then ok…otherwise praise the Lord and serve ❤ . And by the way ridiculous those who compare your quiet time with the Lord with Mohammed…like they never read and heard God speak!!!

Rosie Turner: Thank you for sharing Ruth, I agree with you 100% and it is encouraging to hear your voice on this thread and after reading such an upsetting article from DG. Thank you.

And these not-so-nice comments:

Darnell Turner: That was Satan not God.

Joye Stewart: Sorry but I don’t buy into that Ruth. You’re forgetting your place. Whenever someone says God spoke to them I always cringe. The devil is a liar. The best lies are the ones that are mix: ed with a little truth. It doesn’t say that you should be a doormat in the Bible but you are not equal with men and you’re not to have authority over them. You’re making up your own gospel to suit your fleshly desires. The devil was proud and wanted to be equal too, he wanted to be God and he was cast down for his rebellion. The devil spoke to Eve and she ignored Gods instruction seems like a mistake a lot of women nowadays are making.

Steve likes Joye’s comments.

Had the conversation with myself again, “What are you doing here?  Walk away!”

Didn’t listen.  Things went downhill quickly from here.

To Steve Hulbert: Walt Kaiser was the president of Gordon-Conwell Seminary, where Tim Keller went. Not a scholar to dismiss, someone to engage with and consider. I got the feeling that you were trying to find the weakest argument in his article that you could defeat and I am not interested in debate. I find that debate is not a fruitful endeavor when both sides are in defense mode rather than listening to understand. My primary beef with the original article by John Piper was that he was maligning egalitarians to complementarians who are eager to agree. If you really believe male headship will stand the test of time, you can defend it without tearing down your “enemies,” who are actually part of the Church. I shared another article on the passage you asked about because if you want to understand egalitarian theology, an actual theologian will explain it better than I can.

To Joye Stewart: Paul said that Adam was the one who sinned. Both sinned, both were punished, and that is where hierarchy among gender began. In the Creation story, God told both Adam and Eve to rule over Creation. The Hebrew “ezer kenegdo” that is translated “suitable helper” literally means “corresponding strength.” God is repeatedly our “ezer” throughout the Bible, swooping in to “help” God’s people in battle, and is in no way subordinate to us. “Kenegdo” connotes equality, partnership. Together, men and women are a strong, dynamic duo. No gender hierarchy in God’s original design. Makes sense that God would give Adam a partner rather than an assistant for the big task of ruling Creation. Two heads are better than one, it’s not good to be unequally yoked, etc.

Steve Hulbert: I didn’t look for a weak argument. I found one on the first page.

Sarah Allen: And yet, in Britain there are women in the role of prime minister and head of police, there are women working as judges, police officers, CEOs, university lectures… everywhere there are women in positions of authority; instructing, guiding and managing the lives of men and other women. Why can equality not translate to the church?

Me to Steve Hulbert: Ok, I respect your pov. We probably aren’t going to change each others minds but I appreciate your gentlemanly engagement.

Steve Hulbert: “Why can the church not be more like the world”

I wish every egalitarian would be so honest

Me to Steve Hulbert: patriarchy is the way of the world. Although the tide is shifting towards equality in some cultures, we aren’t there. It would be nice if the Church were leading the way, as the early Church did in elevating the status of women.

Steve Hulbert: Ruth I feel rather nauseous hearing you talk about something God has clearly instituted as “the world’s way”. I think perhaps we should quit while we’re behind.

Steve Hulbert: It grieves me that godly submission is being misunderstood and resisted in the church as in the world. God led me to start taking a submissive attitude to my father and it’s been a challenge as I’ve always liked to think I know better than him. But it’s a game changer in terms of how God is able to bless you. Submission is so much at the heart of God’s way of life that you forfeit your blessings in a huge way by not embracing it. Joye will probably tell you precisely that if you listen instead of arguing. Feminism is of the enemy. Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft and that’s what feminist is. I’ve had to learn to put aside the MRA stuff and the bitterness it engenders which is fine for the world but not fit for God’s people. You’ll be misled into thinking feminism is better and it’s not. Entitlement culture is not God’s culture. Grasping for equality is the antithesis of Christlikeness. In fact making sinners feel or appear equal has never been a biblical concern or slavery would have been prohibited.

Since I was making Steve nauseous with my argumentativeness, I let him have the last word and will leave things at that.  I realize that I don’t have to attend every argument I am invited to, but it is a fine line figuring out when you are having a fruitful conversation and when things are becoming toxic.  It’s not every day that I get compared to Mohamed and John Smith, get called entitled, bitter, grasping.  I reject those words.

This comment thread was also a good reminder to me to watch my words so that I do not do this to others.  It is tough to oppose a doctrine that I believe is inherently abusive without demeaning those who hold to it.  How else can you describe a system that subjugates some under the authority of others due to one factor alone: gender?  Not spiritual maturity, callings or gifts.  Gender.  GENITALIA.

Hierarchy in the Church sidelines the majority and celebrates the ministry of the few, the John Pipers.  Their words have authority and power while others, who also have a relationship with God and have the power of the Holy Spirit within them, are powerless in the Church.  It is not just women but also most men who find their God-given authority and gifts unused and unvalued in hierarchical churches.

We must also consider the epidemic of domestic violence and emotional abuse in the Church.  Or the epidemic of gender violence, rape culture, sexism, FGM and femicide, financial inequality, objectification and sex slavery, etc., in our world.  Let the Church be a force for the empowerment and honoring of women and girls!  Let us heal the brokenness that patriarchy has brought to the world since the Fall!

Typing conversations is hard.  It is easy to misunderstand and hear unintended tones.  The moral of this story should be, love one another, give one another the benefit of the doubt, and if your gut is telling you to walk away, listen! 😉

Here’s a link to the comment thread on FB if you’d like to see how it has devolved since I posted this article.

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Naghmeh Abedini’s New Year’s Exhortation to the Church

Posted on January 2, 2017 by | 2 comments
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“I have come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly.” – Jesus

On New Year’s Eve, Naghmeh Abedini (who we posted about here and here) shared this exhortation on her facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FNaghmehAbedini%2Fposts%2F10154715708550767&width=500

The full message says,

Happy New Year! May this be the year that the daughters of the Most High and the church rise up in one accord and say “Enough is Enough.”

May this be the year that we discover who we truly are in Jesus and that the knowledge of His Great Love for us sets us free and brings much healing to us and to the body of Christ.

I implore you church leaders to stand up for the abused and oppressed and say that it is not acceptable for daughters of the King to be used and abused in such a way . I implore you church leaders to stand up and keep leaders and heads of families accountable and say in one accord that it is not acceptable for those who call themselves Christians to be in such bondage to pornography, adultery, control and abuse. I implore you church leaders to bring back the discussion and the importance of repentance. I implore you church leaders to call the church to repentance and that we would turn from our wicked ways, and turn to God.

May this be the year that as the church of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ we show the world what a true model of marriage looks like and that many would see the light and beauty of Jesus in our transparency and brokenness and that many would be saved.

Love you all! We serve a mighty King and He is in control. ❤

 

Amen!  May it be so!!

Naghmeh links to an article by Gary Thomas, “Enough is Enough,” in which he denounces the abuse many women face in Christian marriages.  For instance, he says,

Another woman told me about putting up with her husband’s appalling behavior for over forty years. I was invited to look in her face, see the struggle, see the heroic perseverance, but also be reminded that counsel has consequences. So when I talk to a young woman in her third year of marriage and it’s clear she’s married to a monster, and someone wants to “save” the marriage, I want them to realize they are likely sentencing her to four decades of abuse, perhaps because of a choice she made as a teenager. When these men aren’t confronted, and aren’t repentant, they don’t change.

Jesus said what he said about divorce to protect women, not to imprison them. Divorce was a weapon foisted against women in the first century, not one they could use, and it almost always left them destitute if their family of origin couldn’t or wouldn’t step up.

How does it honor the concept of “Christian marriage” to enforce the continuance of an abusive, destructive relationship that is slowly squeezing all life and joy out of a woman’s soul? Our focus has to be on urging men to love their wives like Christ loves the church, not on telling women to put up with husbands mistreating their wives like Satan mistreats us. We should confront and stop the work of Satan, not enable it.

Physical, emotional, sexual, psychological and financial abuse are a silent epidemic in our country and around the world.  In the comments under Naghmeh’s post, she elaborates to say she believes that 70% of Christian wives are living with one form of abuse or another in their marriages.

10653672_540932686036868_4005151008959911077_nUnfortunately, most pastors are unequipped to respond appropriately to abuse.  My husband and I went through seminary and hardly heard a word about domestic violence in our classes.  Because women suffer in silence, trying trying trying to pacify their controlling husbands with submissive and meek obedience, pastors may never hear anything from a woman until she is reaching hopelessness and desperation.  And he will likely encourage her to do more, be more, suffer more for the sake of saving her marriage.  He will not understand the psychological impact of living in an abusive relationship for years.  He may bring both in for couple’s counseling, without personal expertise in abuse, and further damage the woman through treating this as a marriage issue rather than as the husband’s sin.

In conservative churches, where headship and submission are taught, women can be subjected to abusive relationships with no hope of relief.  Men have full reign to lord authority over their wives, controlling them rather than living as one with them.  The stigma of divorce leads to shunning of women who leave abusive marriages, and traditional gender roles leave women financially dependent on their spouse, unable to leave without a way to make a living.  The teaching that headship and submission image the relationship of Christ and the Church leads husbands and wives to strive harder to achieve cultural constructs of gender roles rather than becoming more the individuals that God created them to be.

In Rachel Held Evan’s post, “Is patriarchy really God’s dream for the world?”, she says,

If scripture is not enough to convince you that patriarchy is a result of sin, you need only look at the world to observe its effects.

  • Worldwide, women ages fifteen to forty-four are more likely to be maimed or die from male violence than from cancer, malaria, traffic accidents, and war combined.
  • Every 9 seconds, a woman  in the US is assaulted or beaten. Around the world, at least one in every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused during her lifetime. I wish I could say that all complementarians categorically condemn female submission to male violence, but John Piper has said that, in order to model godly submission, a woman may need to quietly “endure verbal abuse for a season” or “getting smacked one night” before “seeking help from the church.” (He says nothing about contacting authorities). Similarly, in Created to Be His Help Meet, Debi Pearl advises a woman whose husband pulled a knife on her to “stop complaining” and focus instead on not “provoking” her husband’s anger. This is destructive advice and reveals something of an assumption that the preservation of male hierarchy is more important than preservation of a woman’s dignity.
  •  At least 3 million women and girls are enslaved in the sex trade.
  • Study after study shows that societies characterized by the subjugation of women are more violent, more impoverished, and more unjust than societies that empower women.  In their excellent book Half the Sky, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn argue that “in this century the paramount moral challenge will be the struggle for gender equality in the developing world.”  Empowering women increases economic productivity, reduces infant mortality, contributes to overall improved health and nutrition, and increases the chances of education for the next generation. Several studies from UNICEF suggest that when women are given control over the family spending, more of the money gets devoted to education, medical care, and small business endeavors than when men control the purse strings. Similarly, when women vote and hold political office, public spending on health increases and child mortality rate declines. Many counterterrorist strategists see women’s empowerment as key to quelling violence and oppression in the Middle East, and women entering the workforce in East Asia generated economic booms in Malaysia, Thailand, and China. (You can find all of these studies cited and analyzed in Half the Sky, which I highly recommend.)

Interestingly, John Piper discussed the unhappy dynamic of much of his marriage in October.  Piper is one of the most influential proponents of complementarian theology (the belief that God designed strict gender roles for men and women), co-founding The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and The Gospel Coalition, a massive coalition of churches which holds complementarian ideology as a core aspect of their beliefs.  In my experience and observation, couples that treat each other as equals (whether they are complementarian or egalitarian) are far happier than couples that function as a hierarchy with the husband at the top.

unsafe relationshipI truly believe that mutual submission between husbands and wives is the correct Biblical teaching.  Giving husbands authority over households rather than all living under the authority of Christ as equals leads to unhealthy and ungodly dynamics and often, abuse.

If your marriage is emotionally destructive and you need to establish boundaries as you work toward healing, here are some resources:

Immediate Help:
National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233.  Crisis help or to develop a safety plan.
Family Renewal Shelter: 1-253-475-9010 (24-hour crisis line) or 1-888-550-3915 (toll free).  A Christian resource for crisis help and assistance developing a safety plan.
American Association of Christian Counselors

Support Resources:
Document the Abuse: Assists women who fear for their safety in developing an Evidentiary Abuse Affidavit.
Women’s Law: Provides state-specific legal information and resources.
VINE (Victim Information and Notification Everyday): Allows crime victims to obtain timely and reliable information about criminal cases and the custody status of offenders.
Lighthouse Network: 1-877-562-2565.  Assists individuals and their loved ones in finding effective treatment for drug, alcohol, psychological or emotional struggles, 24/7.

Books:
The Emotionally Destructive Marriage: How to Find Your Voice and Reclaim Your Hope – Leslie Vernick
Why Does He Do That?  Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men – Lundy Bancroft

Other:
The Emotionally Destructive Marriage:  Free resource page
Self Centered Spouse:  Series of blogs by Brad Hambrick
A Cry for Justice: A blog addressing the needs of the evangelical church to recognize and validate the reality of abuse in the Christian home.
Myths about Domestic Violence

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